There is a need for an automated system for managing the processing of mortgage loan applications, wherein the identification of the loan originator, his/her location and the location of the property which is the subject of the loan, determine the Federal and State mortgage loan laws and regulations as well as the professional guidelines which govern the loan transaction, and wherein the automated system uses the specific loan regulations to determine the tasks required to complete a loan transaction, including tasks required by applicably federal or state law, provide the set of required tasks to lenders and other interested parties, record the completion of the set of tasks, and if requested by a lender, to use the set of tasks internally to drive the flow of the automated mortgage loan process to completion.
The Federal laws and regulations in question are basically those outlined in the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) and the Federal Housing and Urban Development's (HUD's) implementing Regulation X. The State regulations in question are those State specific regulations and implementing instructions that serve a similar purpose, relating to Lender payments to Mortgage Brokers and other settlement service providers. RESPA is the federal law implemented by HUD's Regulation X, to protect home buyers from excess costs and confusion when securing a home mortgage loan. Among other federal laws, the Truth in Lending Act (“TILA”) and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”) impact the mortgage loan process. Under the TILA, certain credit related disclosures are required to be made to the borrower prior to the consummation of a mortgage loan transaction, so that the borrower understands the total cost of the loan.
The ECOA, and its implementing regulation, Regulation B, were enacted and promulgated to require that lenders make credit equally available to all creditworthy borrowers without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, receipt of public assistance or the fact that the borrower in good faith exercised any right under the Federal Consumer Credit Protection Act. In addition to the prohibition against discrimination, the ECOA and Regulation B also contain, among others, requirements regarding the provision of appraisal reports, evaluation of applications, spousal signatures, and the provision of adverse action notices.
Regarding state laws, most jurisdictions have enacted licensing statutes that may require real estate sales professionals, builders, financial institutions/lenders and mortgage brokers to obtain a license and satisfy various other financial, educational and operational requirements. Most jurisdictions also have enacted laws that impose, among others, requirements regarding the types of fees that may be charged to a consumer in connection with a mortgage loan transaction and the persons entitled to receive such fees, as well as certain jurisdiction-specific disclosures that must be provided to the consumer.
There is a need for a system to facilitate the application of all of these laws and regulations (“regulations”) in an efficient and systematic manner during the course of a mortgage loan transaction by using the telecommunications and computing facilities available to the market today.
While some state laws are more restrictive, RESPA allows a licensed real estate professional to receive compensation for originating a mortgage loan only if that real estate professional provides goods or facilities or performs services that are necessary for the origination of the loan and that are separate and distinct from any services the real estate professional provides incident to the sale of the property that secures the mortgage loan. Moreover the mortgage loan process is labor intensive, error prone and time consuming for all parties concerned, making it difficult for a real estate professional to track the services he or she provided to satisfy RESPA and state requirements to justify receiving compensation.
Since the inception of the mortgage process wherein a borrower and lender associated themselves to enact a mutually beneficial and agreeable relationship, the lending process has become increasingly complex. In prior times, a lender, typically a small bank, negotiated directly with a potential home, commercial, or business owner to purchase real property. The borrower presented him- or herself directly to the president of the bank, or to a designated lending officer, and petitioned that bank officer for money to accomplish the purchase of, or improvement to a piece of property. The deal was sometimes affirmed in the form of a handshake, but by definition, a mortgage loan is a loan secured by a mortgage on the subject property. In all, the process was very subjective, and great weight was given to the friendship (or lack of it) between the borrower and lender, as well as other factors which, in today's lending environment, are discouraged or are illegal. The demand for fairness and equity, as well as an increasingly competitive lending environment, was the reason why RESPA was passed and now requires a greater level of sophistication on the part of the lending community. Furthermore as indicated above, increasing oversight on the part of governments and regulatory agencies have required increased levels of sophistication in the traditional borrower-lender relationship. While these oversight demands are generally considered to be a benefit to the borrower-lender relationship, it is, nonetheless a burden to all parties, and significant increases in both time and cost are accrued to the process. As well, protective regulations added by the lending community under whose umbrella the industry operates, further protract the process of ‘doing business’. As indicated above, these regulations and ‘rules’ governing the mortgage process permit those in the loan origination role to receive a fee for services rendered when the applicable rules are followed, as well as penalties and loss of fees for non-compliance. For example, RESPA has criminal penalties wherein a violator can go to jail for up to a year.
The impacts from this increased burden are manifold. The process of obtaining a property-secured loan is protracted by regulation and disjointed, because the participating agents, workers, institutions, and individuals are linked throughout the transaction by archaic means, that is to say, via face-to-face meeting, telephone conversation, fax, postal mail, private delivery contractors, e-mail, and electronic file transmittal. While in some instances, these means are considered by some to be state-of-the-art, they are not. Inherent in all of these transactive mechanisms is the human element. It is typical that time is consumed from the loan application, underwriting, and issuance process because a person is involved at virtually every step of the process. Typically, individuals process information serially, that is, one requirement after another, whereas other means exist to process information and service requests in parallel, where multiple requests are handled or processed simultaneously.
In current methodologies, the loan approval can occur only after the lender has obtained and processed all relevant borrower information, including financial, credit, and employment information. A further disabling of the process exists when errors are made, an event more common when persons are involved in simple, repetitive data handling and manipulation tasks.
In present implementations, the mortgage underwriting process generally follows the following pattern: A borrower, wishing to purchase or improve real property, and usually without the help of experienced advisors, makes a personal determination of the amount of available money generally required for a down payment and his or her ability to repay a loan for the balance. With this personal estimate in mind, a borrower (or buyer) begins a search for property and attends carefully to the costs of said property, making sure that the scope of the search is within the individual's envisioned cash flow constraints and acceptable debt ratios. Generally, individuals seek the professional services of a skilled Real estate sales professional or other agent to aid in the search for suitable property. Concurrent with this search, the individual will often, at the advice of a Real estate sales professional, seek to obtain a pre-approval for an envisioned loan amount, or at least a pre-qualification for a loan. In certain lending models envisioned by the present invention, loan approvals are accompanied with a ‘rate-lock’, or an indication by the lending institution of the available interest rate. Until such a commitment is obtained, it is generally not possible for the individual to faithfully commit to the purchase of property. In the current practice, the pre-approval process occurs outside of the Real estate sales professional's control. However, when a loan pre-approval is obtained, the buyer may, in good faith, negotiate with a seller for the purchase of property. Such negotiations are almost always facilitated by the attending Real estate sales professional(s) who represent the buyer and/or seller in the negotiation. When a mutually agreeable price is determined, and terms of the agreement specific to the buyer and seller are negotiated, appropriate documents are signed, such documents constituting a formally offered and accepted ‘offer to purchase’. At this time, the lending institution originally issuing the loan pre-approval is contacted to proceed with the loan application. It is at this step that the aforementioned ‘burdens’ come to bear on the transaction.
In the past, attempts have been made to automate some parts of this process. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,995,947 issued Nov. 30, 1999 to IMX Mortgage Exchange titled “Interactive Mortgage and loan information and real-time trading system” provides a system and method for trading loans wherein a transaction server maintains a database of pending loan applications and their statuses, and wherein each party to the loan (broker, lender) can search and modify the database consistent with their role in the transaction. However this system focuses on only one facet of the loan process itself. Other parts of the loan process are addressed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,966,700 issued Oct. 12, 1999 to Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago, titled “Management System for Risk Sharing of Mortgage Pools” is a system wherein a mortgage originator (bank, savings & loan, etc.) and a funding institution (Federal Home Loan Bank, etc.) agree to assume certain risks for the mortgage by entering into a credit agreement having an overall credit enhancement value, and wherein the system calculates and records the allocation of mortgage interest and credit risk between them. This system functions after a mortgage has been issued which is outside of applicants' present system. Another recently issued patent related to mortgage loans is U.S. Pat. No. 5,991,745 issued Nov. 23, 1999 to Fannie Mae, titled “Reverse Mortgage Loan Calculation System and Process”, which is a payment calculation system related to loans that the borrower is generally not required to repay until the security property is sold. Still another is U.S. Pat. No. 5,940,812 issued Aug. 17, 1999 to LoanMarket Resources, LLC titled “Apparatus & Method for Automatically Matching a Best Available Loan to a Potential Borrower via Global Telecommunications Network” teaches a system for matching loan requests (and related credit data) to lenders (with related eligibility criteria) in order to facilitate such loans whether they be for automobile purchases or whatever. Similarly, other U.S. Patents teach methods for real time loan approval (U.S. Pat. No. 5,870,721), methods for Lender direct credit evaluation and loan processing(U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,029,149; 5,930,776; and 5,611,052); and methods for keeping track of loans, loan histories, leases and pertinent data related thereto (U.S. Pat. No. 4,774,664).
Inherent in most property transactions, especially those involving a mortgage, are other elements which, as suggested before, serve to protect the interests of all concerned parties, but which unnecessarily protract the underwriting process. These generally include at least the following: a processing procedure and fee to originate the loan application, a title search to discover any encumbrances on the property such as liens, overdue taxes, etc., a credit check on the borrower of record to determine the credit-worthiness of the individual, a verification of employment which speaks to the individual's ability to repay the loan, a property survey, where such is dictated by local laws, an appraisal to determine if the property value secures the lender's investment, application for various insurances such as flood, earthquake, or other insurance as local law and custom requires, the loan application itself, and other such applications, searches, and discoveries, as local laws dictate. In addition to the aforementioned, an income to debt ratio is established to help select the most appropriate loan program(s) consistent with the lender's policy and the borrower's requirements.
Of equal importance in the process is the distribution of service fees and commissions associated with real estate mortgage transactions. The timeliness and accuracy of transactions can adversely affect the payment of various agents or workers involved in the process. Furthermore, because of the almost casual connection between the parties to the transaction, coupled with heretofore rigid definitions of each worker's responsibility, creative solutions to the aforementioned problems were not forthcoming, and little could be done to remedy these problems. Personal intervention on the part of agents or other workers could help, but weren't part of the scope of the transaction, were unreliable, and were differentially applied, often in consideration of such elements as the wealth or prestige of the borrower, the value of the property, personal friendships, or other less tangible factors.
Many of the agents or workers participating in the transaction bear a limited portion of the responsibility for the transaction. Employment verification, title searches, and the like, are often of fixed duration and required effort with mortgages falling within a broad value range. As such, these workers enjoy a steady, regulated income flow. It falls however, to the real estate agent to invest time on an open-ended basis to accomplish a sale. In this instance, the commission is often fixed by industry convention or statute, and the Real estate sales professional typically doesn't enjoy the benefit of serving as both listing and buying agent, which might net a full commission. More typically, the agent must make a 50/50 split with another agent or agency. Adding injury to this significant commission reduction is the typical requirement that the remaining commission balance be split, usually 60/40, with the Real estate sales professional's parent agency. It is common for a Real estate sales professional, having invested many hours over a period or weeks or months, to realize a modest 1-2% of the selling price of the property. Given this scenario, it is expected that a Real estate sales professional will focus on opportunities which will bear fruit faster, and leave the longer-term prospects alone, even though they have a similar reward and are of equal value in the eyes of the respective buyers and sellers.
The current state of the art simply does not provide a means whereby the real estate sales professional, or any other agent or worker, may participate in the other portions of the monetary flow, beyond that which is historically common to their respective industries.
While there are a number of developing systems, as mentioned above, for automated lender selection and loan tracking, it is clear that a need exists for an automated system based upon a database of federal, state and local rules and regulations, which can be used to identify, for a given loan transaction, the set of tasks required to process and complete the loan transaction, including tasks required by applicably federal or state law, and to track the set of tasks during the process itself to reasonably assure that compliance with these rules and regulations can be reported, or alternatively, that compliance task completion may be traced to the entity reporting completion. There is a further need to automatically attach the regulatory compliance information with a task management system required to process loans and to provide methods for integrating the Compliance Engine technology with any third party loan processing software.